Strange. Noticing that Tunnelier (sftp client) is (almost) forcing me to download to a Win 7 box using transfer mode of binary. Wierd. As far as I know, hosts file should be txt/ascii, right?

I'm seeing that the logs say the SFTP version in use is protocol version 3. Evidently binary mode is the default when SFTP 3 is used.

I'd have to select every instance auto LF, as another option. With that option, Tunnelier looks at the first 1kb of contents to determine whether its textual or binary. But I see from other users that this can cause problems.

Anybody else using Tunnelier??? Advice? Never had tunnelier do this to me -- it's my primary client.

Unlike FTP, the sftp transfer mode only has binary mode (I believe there may be proposals to change this in the future, but openssh doesn't support it). All files transferred with sftp are transferred in binary mode.

Any conversion (eg unix2dos line ending changes; ebcdic2ascii etc) needs to be done by the client; it's not part of the protocol.

_________________
Rgds
Stephen
(Linux user since kernel version 0.11)

With protocol 4, txt mode is enabled; this only occurs with protocol 3. I've lived in the 4 world. First instance of dealing with this.

I guess I'll just go with auto CR/LF mode cause I don't imagine you can read a binary file once it's downloaded & I gotta be able to edit.

Putty for the SSH Client and FileZilla for the SFTP transfers (using NPP for the editor) seems to be quite a bit faster then the all-in-one Bitvise's Tunnelier.

Will explore. TY. What do u (or others) think about WinSCP

WinSCP is very very very very slow. I used to use it until FileZilla added stable SFTP to their client.

Ahhh, Filezilla will let me right click on a file on the server and edit it.

Now that's a selling point!

Found this: FileZilla stores the SFTP username and password in plain text as well. So while the SFTP will prevent the "sniffing" of user credentials, it won't stop a virus on local computer from just reading them from the file.

Look in this file: C:\Documents and Settings\(user)\Application Data\FileZilla\sitemanager.xml

You'll see the username and password in there, for the most version of FileZilla.

I'm afraid my tinfoil hat just isn't that tight enough to worry about physical access snooping by some mystery virus.

Besides, why are you using passwords with SSH? Use certs instead.

What's the practical difference for this scenario? Anything that could snarf the local file containing the password could presumably snarf the certificate (and private key) as well.

-- David

None - since I don't worry about a mystery virus with super multicellular skills at skimming cleartext data, I don't worry about the password or the certs. Just saying certs are better no matter what level of tinfoil hat you wear.

I have NOT experienced any issues with speed using WinSCP or Filezilla - both download/upload at approximately the same rate.

Using Current WinSCP and FileZilla.

Using Windows 7 Pro OS.

Both using SFTP.

Uploading speed test (64M PFSense ISO to remote host)

WinSCP = 4200 KB/s
FileZilla = 12.4 MB/s

Several WinSCP versions back - I could not believe how long uploads were taking. Google pointed out I wasn't the only one. Finally found FileZilla (although I actually like the WinSCP interface better, I'm too impatient, so I've learned to like FileZilla).

I wonder if the transfer speed increases or decreases when using SCP as the file protocol...

I've been using winzilla today and I must say that it's definitely faster than tunnelier. I am keeping both of them... Haven't had time to deal with speed tests but it's really obvious from my file transfers that filezilla is a keeper. Like the gui also/few things that weren't intuitive but no biggees. I like the ability to edit files on the server. On the other hand, tunnelier has remote desktop and sftp which I can switch back forth as needed but it doesn't allow editing of files on remote server when in sftp. winz. doesn't have rdesktop. Have a university server that i'm using tunnelier with vpn for access and will probably stick with tunnelier for that usage.

Thanks much to the OP who recommended winzilla to me. It was a good nudge